


Deus Ex

by Rainne



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Deus Ex Machina, F/M, I hope you like it, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamorous Character, Porn, SO, Violence, Yes you read that right, and apparently i am incapable of writing ficlets, because it's literally 40 pages long, even though it does have porn in it, i forgot to mention, idek any more, impromptu dance parties, just all kinds of ridiculous things, maybe there's something wrong with me, not a work in progress, okay look, polyamorous steve rogers, steve rogers learning how to dougie, this is a finished fic, this was supposed to be a ficlet, updating daily, you probably won't like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:45:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1945116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To one place Eris drew them all, the fearful Battle-queen,<br/>beheld of none, but cloaked in clouds blood-raining:<br/>on she stalked swelling the mighty roar of battle,<br/>now rushed through Troy's squadrons,<br/>through Akhaia's now;<br/>Phobos and Deimos still waited on her steps to make their father's sister glorious.<br/>From small to huge that Fury's stature grew;<br/>her arms of adamant were blood-besprent,<br/>the deadly lance she brandished reached the sky.<br/>Earth quaked beneath her feet:<br/>dread blasts of fire flamed from her mouth:<br/>her voice pealed thunder-like kindling strong men.<br/>Swift closed the fronts of fight drawn by a dread Power to the mighty work.</p>
<p>~Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aenaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenaria/gifts).



The gods have a weakness for humans.

No one ever seems to look at it that way, but that's what it is. After the universe gave birth to itself, after the Mother gave birth to the Titans and the Titans gave way to the gods, the gods created the humans, and that was probably a mistake. Because the gods are very like their children, and so they remain constantly fascinated by the goings and the doings and the changes that are wrought upon the planet by these tiny, short-lived creatures who crawl upon it. Even after humanity moved on, after it gave up the worship of the many gods in favor of one petty screaming thunderer from out in the desert, even after most of humanity stopped taking that desert screamer seriously and moved on to worshiping itself and its own abilities, the gods still remain, watching and waiting.

In the stories, you can see this fascination if you look carefully. You can see it when Eros falls in love with Psyche; you can see it when Aphrodite falls in love with Adonis; you can see it when Artemis falls in love with Atalanta. There are many tales that tell of the gods falling in love with humans.

Somehow Eris always gets left out. You'd think, after Troy, people would stop doing that.

~*~

He came to her attention quite suddenly. She was flitting the way she liked to do during wartime; there was always such an electric energy, especially in the cities, and she loved it. She loved the  _potential_ , and the way that there always seemed to be such promise in the air. Not so long ago, the rhetoric stirring up all the sentiment had been all about the Hun; now it was Nazis and Japs. She'd flittered about on the other side, too, but there was something very  _wrong_ about the energy over there. Eris was the goddess of  _discord_ , not the goddess of  _torture_ . 

So here she was. The night was bright, the humans were beautiful, and there was one standing up on a stage, demonstrating technology that he was so very, very proud of having  _almost_ invented. And then there was a glimmer. Almost like a shine out of the corner of her eye. She turned, her eyes searching through the crowd, and she caught sight of a soldier with a worried face. Was it him?

No, but it was close to him. She followed the soldier as he made his way through the crowd, and then.

There he was.

She gasped in delight. He was tiny, but so very, very  _fierce,_ and so determined to have his way even though it would most likely mean his death. So very determined to prove himself and his worth against a world that had discounted him and ignored him and left him out for so long.

She could really relate to that.

She listened as he argued with his friend, and as they came to accord and embraced; as the friend turned and left him to his chosen fate, she reached out and laid a hand on the uniformed arm. He didn't see her, but he paused in his stride for a brief moment, and in that moment, she laid her blessing upon him. He had seen; he had known. And he had called this one, this very special one, to her attention. For that, he deserved what protection she could provide. He would not die on the battlefields of Europe.

And then she left him to his fate, and she turned, and she followed the tiny, fierce one, letting her fascination overtake her.

She followed him through the nerve-wracking examination, and the interview with the German doctor. She followed him through the training camp. She laid a very special blessing on the woman in the training camp; that one was going to need every blessing she could get, with the amount of chaos in _her_ future.

She could have guided his actions, but she didn't; she stood aside and merely watched as he showed his soul to everyone around him, time and time again. And she nodded when he was chosen to become the embodiment of the American Spirit. He was worthy.

Still, no man ever became the consort of a goddess without passing a test, and the capsule was his: could he withstand the suffering that was to come? Of course he could, and he did, and when he emerged, his soul was on the outside for everyone to see. Not that most of them appreciated it; the men who took her warrior and turned him into a dancing girl did not receive her blessing. But it was not for nothing that she had been fascinated by him; all it took was a nudge in the right direction at the right time, and he was proving himself to the world.

She watched, breathless, as he leapt out into the sky, falling to the earth and making his way into his enemy's fortress, single-handed like the heroes of Akhaia once had, valorous and brave and strong. She crowed as he released the prisoners, and she guarded him as he made his way through the stronghold, searching, searching, always searching.

And then.

There, lying on a table, the friend he had argued with, the one she had blessed. He wouldn't die on the battlefields, she knew, but he might die here – but not if her chosen had anything to say about it. Her tiny, fierce warrior lifted up his shield-brother and the two of them made their escape.

Oh, how she exulted in their freedom! Their bravery, their strength together, as they rallied the rescued men and marched back toward their own camps. It was so difficult, really, to choose between them. Now that she saw them both together, they were two sides of the same  _drachm,_ the light and the dark, and it was impossible to have the one without the other.

And so she knelt between them as they lay side by side in their encampment, and she placed her fingers on both of their foreheads, and she whispered her power into being, and she bound them together, and she made them her chosen, for all eternity.

And then they fell.

~*~

She consulted briefly with the sisters, the Moirai: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Spinning and weaving and snipping as they went, none of the three looked up at Eris when they spoke in their strange, three-sided manner.

“The ones you seek - ”

“ \- are not dead, as you well know - ”

“ \- but the time will come for them to return.”

“When this happens - ”

“ \- it will be a time of great discord for all of humanity - ”

“ \- which probably means you'll be right in the thick of things - ”

“ \- and likely happier than you have been - ”

“ \- since you gave that apple to Paris.”

She tapped her finger against her chin. “I'm tired of watching from the shadows,” she said. “Weave me in.”

“Are you certain? It is - ”

“ \- a treacherous path that you seek to walk - ”

“ \- and one fraught with many dangers.”

“I'm certain,” Eris replied. “Besides, I've got a few tricks of my own up my sleeve. They don't call me Discordia because I follow the rules, you know.”

“We know,” they assured her in chorus.

“Very well,” said the one holding the spindle – she thought it might be Lachesis today, but she wasn't sure, and it wouldn't do to ask. The clawed hand drew a shining new thread from the wool, and another clawed hand (Clotho's?) took it, introducing it to the fabric on the loom and weaving it in seamlessly. 

“There you are,” said the one holding the snippers, who she was almost certain was probably not Atropos. “The stage is set.”

“Why, ladies,” Eris murmured, “all the world's a stage, haven't you heard? And all the men and women merely players.”

“Yes, we've heard,” said the weaver. “We don't go in for the theater.”

~*~

The first time Steve Rogers met Darcy Lewis, she was dancing in the middle of the common floor, her earbuds in her ears. She was wearing a white button-up shirt, plaid Catholic-school skirt and black tights, and the way the plaid swung from her hips and around her thighs was entrancing. He watched her, feeling a grin stretch across his face even through the agony inside him, and he waited for her to catch sight of him. When she did, she gave a wholly undignified squeak of shock and clasped at her chest. “It's not nice to sneak up on people!” she exclaimed.

“I couldn't help it,” he said. “You made such a picture.”

She pointed a finger at him and pouted her full lower lip. “You're a troll.”

“Probably,” he agreed, “only I don't know what that means.”

“You're a shit,” she explained. “You're a troublemaker and a problem-causer and you do everything you do with that little grin on your face that says 'who, me?'”

He smirked at her. “Who, me?”

She stalked over and poked him in the center of his chest. “I'm on to you, buddy.”

“Steve Rogers,” he introduced himself, offering his hand. He studied her for a moment. “Have we met before? You seem really familiar for some reason.” 

“Nope,” she replied, popping the _p._ “I'd remember. Darcy Lewis.” She took his hand in hers and shook, grinning back at him and shaking her hips. “Wanna dance?”

“I honestly don't know how,” he admitted. 

“Come on,” she said, tugging him off the stool where he was sitting. “I'll teach you. Help me move the furniture.” Bemused, he did so, and soon the furniture was all piled against the far wall. Darcy pulled Steve into the middle of the now-empty floor and stood beside him, bumping his right arm with her left shoulder. “JARVIS, my buddy, can I get you to pull my dancing playlist and start at the top?”

“Certainly, Miss Lewis,” the AI replied.

“Okay, Steve,” Darcy said, “this step is called a grapevine.”

Barely a minute later, drawn by the music, Clint Barton joined them in the middle of the floor and seamlessly integrated himself into their Electric Slide. Two minutes after that, Thor joined them just in time to learn the Cha Cha Slide. Natasha Romanoff suddenly appeared on Steve's left side halfway through the Macarena. Steve tried to sit out the Cotton Eyed Joe, but Pepper dragged him back into the mix. The one that made it to the Internet, courtesy of Tony and Bruce's precipitous arrival, was the one of Clint teaching Thor and Steve how to Dougie.

After the night of the Impromptu Dance Party, Steve found himself drawn to Darcy. There was something about her that he couldn't explain, something vibrant and  _real_ in a way that the rest of the world just seemed to lack. She was a balm to his tortured, ravaged heart. He often sought her out for explanations of modern phenomena, five-minute recaps of important historical context, or just to talk. She took to inviting him to her room for movie nights, which soon became dinner-and-a-movie nights, which soon became dinner-and-a-movie-in-the-background-while-we-make-out nights. 

Steve was surprised when she didn't want to go any further; in his own time, plenty of girls didn't worry about waiting until marriage, and certainly sexual norms were much looser now than before. But the first time his hand slid under her skirt during a make-out session, she stopped him, pushing it back out again. “Sorry,” he said, taking his hand back and placing it safely on her waist.

“It's okay,” she replied, smiling slightly and running a hand through his hair. “I just...” She paused, chewing her lip nervously. “I haven't ever.”

He blinked, his face going flat in surprise. “Never?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.” She studied him for a moment before pulling back slightly. “Is that... a problem?”

“No, of course not,” he said, pulling her close again. “No, I was just surprised. It seems like everyone these days starts in high school, and so I just assumed...” He ran a thumb across her cheekbone. “I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry.” He paused, studying her eyes. “Are you waiting for marriage, or...?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. Not really? Just... I have a sister who's five years older than me, and when I started dating my first boyfriend, she sat me down and had a talk with me, and she told me about her first time and how disappointing it was, and she said, 'Darcy, it won't hurt you to hold off. Save it for somebody who's really special.' And I just... I don't know.” She shrugged, giving him a slight, crooked grin. “I'll know when it's time, and it just hasn't been time yet.”

“I can respect that,” Steve said.

Darcy grinned. “I'm glad to hear it.”

And he did respect it, and for two more months they continued the pattern of dates in – and sometimes, dates out – that ended on one of their couches with a serious make-out session and a parting that grew more and more difficult each time. And then finally, one night in December, as she sat straddling his lap and panting against his mouth, Darcy said, “The hell with this.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I'm gonna need some context for that.”

She grinned. “I'll give you context,” she said, She slid backward off his lap and stood up, grabbing him by the hands and tugging. “I'll give you all the context you can handle.”

He let her pull him to his feet and followed, amused, as she led him back into her bedroom. He paused in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, and watched with no small amount of fascination as she marched herself to the middle of the room, turned to face him, and pulled her shirt off. “Darce?”

She smirked, letting her hands drop to her waistband, unfastening her jeans with nimble fingers. “What are you doing way over there?” she asked him.

He was in front of her in two paces, his hands warm against the soft skin of her belly and sides. “Darcy,” he said softly, staring into her eyes, “are you sure?”

“If I wasn't sure,” she answered, lifting her chin, “we'd still be out on the couch.”

He leaned down to kiss her again, and it was softer and somehow more reverent than any kiss they'd shared before. “Let me do this right for you,” he murmured against her lips, his hands sliding underneath hers to take over the task of undressing her. “Let me make it good for you.”

“You'd better,” she managed, vaguely threatening, but her voice was shaking and they both knew it. He straightened a little, grinning, and then he took a knee in front of her, leaning to press a gentle kiss to the skin just above her navel. She shivered at his touch, and then again when he repeated the kiss just below her navel, while his fingers drew her zipper down. She was already barefoot, so there was no obstacle to delay him from sliding her jeans off her legs, and then she was standing before him in nothing but a green bra and panty set. 

Steve reached up, his fingers trailing across the satiny material that covered her hip. “If I didn't know better,” he said, in a tone that indicated he knew perfectly well better, “I'd think you planned this.”

“Why, Captain Rogers,” she replied, her voice slightly breathless, “I'm sure I have no idea what you mean.”

He laughed, and then suddenly lunged forward and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her left thigh. She gasped, shuddering hard, and he grinned. He wrapped his hands around her hips and guided her back to sit on the side of the bed. He parted her legs gently, his fingers trailing up from her knees to the edge of her panties. He drew one finger along that seam, where her thigh met her hip. “Okay?” he asked her softly.

“ _So_ okay,” she assured him, and he grinned, leaning down to lick that sensitive skin.

She gasped again, her hips arching up toward him, and he slid his hands underneath her, cupping her ass for just a moment before sliding up again. He tucked his fingertips under the elastic waistband and drew them down her legs, dropping them on the floor before turning and pressing a wet kiss to the front of her hip on the other side.

He could hear her breath coming fast, her lips parted just a tiny bit, and he grinned up into her wide eyes. Then he trailed his fingers along the seam of her lower lips, parting them just a bit and dipping into the developing wetness. She shuddered, and her hands came up to cup his cheeks. She leaned down and kissed him, warm and slow, gasping into his mouth when he slipped a finger inside of her. She whined his name softly as he pushed it all the way in, thrusting in and out gently to accustom her to his presence there before adding a second alongside.

His other hand threaded into her hair, holding her close to him, and when he released her mouth, he straightened her up just a bit and he murmured, “Watch.”

She opened her eyes, training them down on his fingers as they disappeared inside her, and she moaned softly. “Steve.”

He grinned again, kissing her warmly, and then he said, “Lie back.”

She did, raising her arms over her head in surrender, and he crowded in close, pressing a third finger in with the first two, stretching her wide, and leaning down to press his mouth to her throbbing clit.

She cried out then, her body arching toward him, and he tangled the fingers of his free hand with hers even as he worked her with his tongue, rubbing her clit with its wide, flat surface before curling it around her and sucking on her like a piece of candy. She broke apart beneath him, her muscles clamping down on his fingers, and chanted his name as she came.

He gave her slow, gentle licks as she came down, holding his hand steady inside her while her muscles fluttered with aftershocks. Once she caught her breath, he slid them gently out of her body, and her eyes widened when he slipped them, one after another, into his mouth, licking the taste of her off his skin. He grinned at her, and she grinned back, pushing herself up into a sitting position and reaching behind herself to unhook her bra. She tossed it at him and he caught it easily, dropping it onto the floor beside her panties.

He stood up and shucked his clothing quickly, then stretched out on the bed beside her, pressing his still-damp hand to the sharp line of her jaw and drawing her down for a hot, wet kiss. His other hand wrapped around her lower back and she stifled a moan against his mouth when he rolled them both so that she was straddling his body, his cock brushing against the thatch of hair at her mons. She ground against him, trapping his length between his stomach and her wetness, and he groaned, pushing his hips up against hers. “God, Darce,” he muttered against her skin. “God, you're so perfect.” He delved into her mouth again, both of his hands buried in her hair. Between kisses he whispered, “You still sure?”

“Still sure,” she promised. “I want this. Want you.”

He ran his hands down her body, gripping her hips and grinding up against her. “Do you have...”

She wrapped her hand around his length. “I'm clean and on the Pill,” she said. “You?”

“No Pill,” he replied, laughing softly. “But I'm clean. Can't catch or carry anything.”

She raised herself up on her knees, and his right hand joined hers around his cock, aligning him against her body. Then she sank down, lowering herself slowly onto him. A very soft, unidentifiable vowel sound escaped her as she slowly took him in.

His left hand came up to caress her cheek. “Is it okay?” he asked, his voice a low rumble in his chest.

“S...so...” she managed as their bodies finally pressed all the way together. “So... so... _very_ _okay._ ”

He chuckled, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “I've been told the first time can hurt,” he offered.

She shook her head. “No... No, it's... it's good.”

He placed his right hand on her hip and ground against her. She shuddered hard, her back arching and her head falling backward. “Good,” he murmured. “It turns out I  _do_ know a couple of useful tricks.” 

She shuddered again, her inner muscles fluttering around him, and then she raised her head, trying to focus on him with eyes gone glassy. “What does that mean?”

He grinned. “Well,” he said, “if it's not too tacky to speak of it, the girls on the USO tour taught me a few things about how to treat a woman.” He waited for her to indicate that it was all right to continue, and he explained, “That's where I learned that the first time, for a woman, can be painful. Doris and Martha are the ones who taught me how to avoid that.” He waggled his fingers at her.

She chuffed out a laugh. “Is  _that_ what you were doing? I thought you were just trying to render me incoherent faster.”

“I never said there weren't secondary benefits,” he replied. Then he lifted her up by her hips and lowered her down again, rolling his own against her at the same time. 

Her hands fell to his chest, bracing herself against him, and she followed his movements, rolling her hips in tandem with his. “Oh, God, Steve,” she moaned, her head dropping forward and her hair falling down around her face. “That's so good. Oh, God, you feel so good.”

They found a rhythm that worked for them, alternating slow and deep strokes with quick hip rolls and filthy grinds, murmuring encouragement and praise to one another, until Steve's hand spread out from across her hip, his thumb sliding between her folds and finding her clit unerringly. He stroked and teased it, drawing loud, high-pitched cries from her, until she arched above him, keening out her pleasure and shuddering hard.

He gritted his teeth through her climax, holding on and just working her through it, and when she collapsed against his chest, he wrapped both his arms around her and rolled them so that he was on top, his hips resting snugly between her thighs. He raised himself up on his elbows, leaning down to kiss her soft and slow, and then he started to push into her with hard, measured strokes. She cried out with every thrust, her body hypersensitive, and he bent his head to rest beside hers, whispering words of love into her ear, interspersed with warm, messy kisses. “You're gonna come for me again,” he told her, biting gently at her neck and making her arch and writhe under him. “You can do it. I know you can.”

“Steve, _fuck_ _,_ ” she managed, her hands gripping his back and shoulders. “Please, baby, please.”

He laughed breathlessly into her ear and gave a particularly rough thrust, making her arch and mewl. “That's right. You want it and I'm gonna let you have it.” He reached up and pulled one of her hands down from his back, pushing it between their bodies. “Touch yourself,” he murmured.

She did, her fingers drifting down between them. She circled her clit with the pads of two fingers, then slid them down to their joining, brushing against his cock as he moved in and out of her. He groaned softly, nipping at her bottom lip, and she went back to her clit. With a few short, practiced touches, she was flying again, her legs clenching around his waist and a full-throated cry bursting from her mouth. He kept going, pushing in and in and in even through her shudders and then, quite suddenly, he gave a shove deeper than any before. He groaned softly against her neck, his hips jerking against her once, twice, and again, and then she could feel the pulses of warmth inside her as he came.

In the silence that followed, he rolled onto his back again and draped her over him, still buried deep within her. She moaned and twitched with aftershocks and he chuckled, running soothing hands down her back.

After a few minutes, she raised her head, folding her hands across Steve's chest and resting her chin on them. He grabbed a pillow and propped his own head up, running his hands gently through her hair as they lay there together, not speaking, just reveling in their closeness. At last, she stretched up and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That was perfect.”

He smiled. “Happy to be of service.”

Sometime later, as he lay asleep on her bed, Darcy slipped out of his arms and padded naked into the bathroom. She paused, stretched, and used the toilet in the darkness, then turned to the mirror. She washed her hands; then, with a touch of her finger to the wick of the candle on the bathroom cabinet, she lit a tiny flame. In the flickering light, she glanced up at the reflecting surface.

In the mirror, Eris smiled back at her. "I told you," she said.

"Yes, you did," Darcy replied easily, and was proud of herself for only blushing a little bit. "But I told  _ you _ that I wanted to find out for myself. If you always guide my choices, Eris, then how am I ever supposed to grow as a person?"

The words were familiar. Many, many times in the past, a younger Darcy had asked her much older alter ego for guidance in decision-making, and Eris had often told her the exact same thing when she made Darcy choose for herself.  _ I'm thousands of years old, _ she would say.  _ If I make all the decisions for you, then I'm not living a human life, I'm just existing within a human shell. If I do that, what's the point of you at all?  _

Darcy smirked as Eris scowled. "Sucks to be on your end of things right now, eh?"

Eris made a face at her. "Go back to bed," she said sourly. "Otherwise he'll wake up and come looking for you."

"I'm going," Darcy said. She leaned over and blew out the candle. The room went dark, and she reached out to touch the lever on the wall, raising the light level just a bit. In the mirror now, there was only Darcy.

It was an odd sort of double existence. Knowing that you weren't alone inside your own head, that you weren't alone inside your own  _ soul _ , was something that Darcy intellectually recognized as a strange thing. It was normal for  _ her _ , of course, because for her, Eris had always been there in the same way that her shadow was always with her. But she'd learned very quickly that not everyone had the same experience. 

Her parents, of course, had written off any careless childhood talk as the usual imaginary friend. Once Darcy learned, at around age six, that nobody else had a second person inside their head (or inside their mirror), she stopped talking about Eris, and everyone assumed she'd grown out of that phase.

That was when Eris started teaching her how to do magic.

Of course, Eris didn't call it magic; for her, it was simply the use of her natural abilities as a goddess. Darcy liked to call it magic, though, because she was still smarting over not getting a letter from Hogwarts. So when Eris began teaching her the ways of the elements, well, Darcy was _motivated_.

She smiled softly at the thought of those early days, even as she meandered back out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. And sure enough, just as her alter ego had predicted, Steve was rousing, just starting to look for her with sleepy eyes. "Hey, " she said softly, reaching out to slide her hand into his even as she slipped back between the sheets. "I just went to the bathroom."

"Couldn' find you," he mumbled, still mostly asleep. He pulled her close, spooning up against her back and wrapping his arm around her waist.

"I'm here now," she promised, resting her hands on top of his. "I'm not going anywhere."

His only reply was a soft sigh as he fell back to sleep, his warm breath curling through her hair and against the back of her neck.


	2. Chapter 2

The separation when SHIELD transferred Steve to Washington was not easy on them. As often as possible, one or the other of them took the train to visit, but long distance relationships are a lot of work at the best of times. A long-distance relationship in which one partner is constantly being called upon to risk life and limb to help save the world and the other is Captain America is guaranteed to involve a nearly unparalleled level of strain.

But they had been together for a very long time - longer, even, than Steve really knew - and neither of them could be described as anything other than bull-headedly stubborn. And so they persevered, through Darcy's science field trips to various locations with Jane (one of which turned into a terrifying near-kidnap by A.I.M. and another in which a totally mundane traffic accident put Darcy into a cast and on crutches for six weeks) and Steve's various expeditions into the Great Unknown (or, rather, the Great Classified Top-Secret) for SHIELD.

And then, late one evening in April, Darcy got a phone call from Steve. "Sweetheart, where are you?" he asked with no preamble.

"Central Market," Darcy replied, naming one of the restaurants in the dining concourse at Grand Central Station. "Jane wanted a Reuben, so I'm getting us both sandwiches, and I might go over to the bakery and get something for dessert."

"Don't," he said. "Just... get back inside the Tower, quick as you can, and stay there. Make Jane stay there, too. Tell Tony..." He paused, and she could practically hear him struggling with his thoughts. "Tell Tony that Director Fury has just been murdered. In my apartment. By an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Ask him to find me any information he and JARVIS can find."

Darcy felt her blood run cold. "Oh my God, Steve," she whispered. "Are you all right?" Dimly, she heard the young man behind the counter call out her ticket number; she took her bag of sandwiches with nerveless fingers and began to make her way as quickly as possible back into the Tower.

"I'm fine," he assured her. "He didn't come in; he shot him through the window off the next door roof."

"Oh, my God," Darcy managed again. "Steve."

"I'm _okay_ ," he said forcefully, even as Darcy got into the private elevator for VIP Tower residents (read: Avengers et al.), and sagged against the wall. "I just need you to stay safe until this is all over. Okay? Can you do that for me?"

"Promise to keep me updated," Darcy said, her voice shaky.

"I promise," Steve replied. "I have to go. I'll call you soon. I love you."

"I love you, too," she told him. The line disconnected.

Darcy took Jane her Reuben, then claimed cramps and went home to her apartment. She locked the door behind herself, tossed her own sandwich into the refrigerator, and said, "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Miss Lewis?"

"I need you to pass on some information to Tony for me, please. And then I need you to engage a privacy lock on this apartment. Nobody gets in, and zero surveillance, until I release."

"Of course, Miss Lewis," JARVIS replied. "What is the information?" Darcy relayed what Steve told her. JARVIS confirmed that he would pass the information on, and then said, "Privacy mode engaging."

"Thank you, JARVIS," Darcy murmured. She went into the bathroom, shed her clothing, and dropped it all into the hamper. Then she untied her hair, shaking it out so that it fell in waves down her back. That done, she went into her bedroom and pulled open a drawer in her dresser. From the drawer, she extracted a small wooden box and placed it on top of the dresser. She flipped the box open and withdrew a tiny golden apple, cupping it in both her hands.

She breathed a long, slow breath onto the apple. It shifted in her hands, almost as though it was alive, and it _melted_ , sliding up her arms and somehow increasing in volume as it did so. When it reached her shoulders, it stopped there and seemed almost to flow down her body, turning as it did so into brilliant white fabric, draping itself from her shoulders in a sleeveless tunic, gathering at her waist, and falling into a skirt that ended just above her knees.

Golden sandals formed on her feet, the straps wrapping around her shins to tie beneath her knees. The armor of a hoplite followed; a breastplate that covered her from shoulders to waist and the greaves that covered her shins, stronger than steel but yellow as gold. Rather than a helmet, a circlet of gold appeared around her head, with a huge sapphire as blue as the sky resting in the center of her forehead. A long golden spear appeared in her right hand. From her back, massive black wings erupted. They spanned a full ten feet, huge and powerful and formed of feathers black as jet, the same color as her unbound hair.

_No one will harm my chosen_ , she murmured in a voice that shook the heavens like the thunder of Thor. And then she vanished.

~*~

"Bucky?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

~*~

Steve lowered his shield, raising his arms in surrender and going to his knees as armed men in black tactical suits swarmed toward him, Rumlow in the lead, screaming for him to get down, to give up, to stop fighting. His mind was blank, ringing with nothing but Bucky's name, Bucky's face, the blank, desolate look in Bucky's eyes.

What had they done to him?

He was so lost in himself, in the despair of what he had just seen, that he didn't realize for a moment that the screaming had stopped, but that no one was moving. He blinked, clearing his vision, and raised his head.

The men who had been moving to surround him had stopped in their tracks, staring at him in terror - no, staring _past_ him, above his head. He felt a strange warmth envelop him from behind - a calming, soothing sensation that wrapped itself around him like a blanket smelling of home - and he heard a female voice that emanated from everywhere and nowhere all at once, rumbling deep and low through the earth and thundering in the sky.

_None shall harm my chosen,_ it said.

"Whoa," he heard Rumlow say, and his voice sounded small, as if coming from a great distance. "I don't know where you came from, but let's just all settle down here for a minute, okay? Nobody has to get hurt."

_Nobody ever_ has _to get hurt,_ the voice replied, and it sounded... sarcastic. Steve's brows drew together in confusion.  _And yet, somehow, someone always does._

"Why don't we maybe all put our weapons down and we can talk, yeah?" Rumlow said. "Nobody's gonna hurt the Cap. We just... need to bring him in. Interrogation, you know? Ask him some questions about a murder. And of course, about all this chaos," he added, gesturing around him at the mess of twisted and broken vehicles that littered the streets.

_What chaos?_ the woman's voice asked. There was a sudden breath of warm air, scented with salt and olives, and quite suddenly the street was clear, the smoke and debris cleared, the shouts of panic silenced. 

Steve looked around, his eyes wide, and finally spoke. "What did you do with them?"

There was a soft laugh, somehow familiar to him.  _I cleaned up the mess, Chosen,_ she said.  _Don't worry. Everyone's gone home, with their cars and their bones and their souls intact. I wouldn't hurt them. They're not part of this._

Emboldened, he spoke again. "What is this?" he asked.

_This is where I send a message,_ she said.  _These men all serve the same master, but it is not the same one that you serve. Tell me, you who would placate the infinite, what master do you serve?_

There was dead silence on the street for a long moment. Then Steve heard footsteps. A young woman dressed like a Greek warrior paced out from behind him, her face obscured by the giant black wings that sprouted from her back. She strode directly up to Rumlow, completely unafraid, and Steve saw her hand reach out and rest flat upon his chest. _Tell me what master you serve_ , she said.

Rumlow's face was beaded with sweat as he fought against whatever compulsion she'd laid on him, but he was not as strong as she, and his face went red as he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hail HYDRA!"

"Hail HYDRA!" his men echoed.

Steve felt sick. How was this possible? How could this have happened? He ended HYDRA when he crashed the _Valkyrie_ into the water - didn't he? How could these people - SHIELD agents all - be loyal to HYDRA?

_I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Chosen,_ the winged woman said.  _But you had to know._

"No, I... you're right," he said softly, feeling dazed. "I'd rather know than keep on being somebody's chump." Slowly he stood, picking up his shield again and putting his arm through the grips. "So you're going to... send a message. To HYDRA?"

_Yes,_ she said.  _Choose a messenger._

He raised an eyebrow, looking slowly around at the mass of black-clad, helmeted figures. None of them moved, and none of them would meet his eye. He chose one at random and pointed. "That one," he said.

_Good,_ she replied. She bent forward just a little bit, hunching her shoulders as if building up pressure, and as Steve watched, she began first to smolder and then to actually burn. Quite suddenly she released, throwing her arms and her head backward. The fire that had surrounded her exploded like the outer shell of a supernova, expanding in a massive sphere that annihilated every single HYDRA agent it touched, beginning with Brock Rumlow. A split second after it was released, it was gone, and the only signs that anything had even happened were the echoes of screams that still shimmered in the air and the smears of lampblack on the ground where those agents had been.

The only people still standing there were Steve and the winged woman, Sam and Natasha, the HYDRA agent Steve had chosen, and one other HYDRA agent, who pulled her helmet off a moment later, revealing herself to be a stunned Maria Hill.

The winged woman stalked over to the last remaining HYDRA agent, reaching out to grip his face in her hand. He whimpered in pain when she did so, a dark stain spreading on the crotch of his pants.  _Run back to your masters, dog,_ she said to him.  _Tell them what has occurred here today. Tell them that Steve Rogers is Chosen, and anyone who attempts to harm him will die._ She paused, then added,  _Tell them, too, that I am coming for the one they stole from me, and when I find him, I will not be merciful._

She shoved the agent backward and he fell hard on his ass, then scrabbled back like a crab, babbling promises and assurances. Once he'd gotten a few meters away, he scrambled to his feet and ran.

There was movement to the side, and Steve felt more than saw Maria, Sam, and Natasha come up to stand beside him on the empty street, staring at the woman who had just saved them all. She still had her back to them, and as they watched, she folded those magnificent wings down against her back. Then she turned to face them.

Steve gaped. "Darcy?"

_Not in this form,_ the woman replied.  _In this form, I am called by many names. The Greeks called me Eris._

"Goddess of strife and discord?" Sam asked.

_Chaos, thank you very much,_ Eris replied primly.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Sam said. "Chaos follows this fool around like a puppy dog."

_He is my Chosen,_ Eris said simply. Then she added,  _Well, one of them, anyway._

"There's another?" Steve asked, his heart suddenly filling with hope. "Is that what you meant about the one they stole?"

_You saw him,_ Eris said. It wasn't a question, but Steve nodded anyway. 

"It was Bucky," he said. "He's got a metal arm and he doesn't know who he is, but it was him. Please," he managed, reaching out his hand to her, his voice cracking. "If you really are a goddess... please... can you help him?"

She reached back, taking his hand and drawing him to her. Her free hand cupped his cheek, and she smiled.  _Of course I will,_ she said.  _They've hidden him from me for sixty-nine years. Now that I know he's here, I can find him. And I will find him._ She paused, and she smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile.  _And when I do, Chosen, I will make them pay._

~*~

"Mission report."

The asset did not respond; the thoughts swirling in its mind were higher priority at the moment. That man with the shield, its target, who had been with it on a bridge, who had been with it on a train, who had called it Bucky... who was that man? Why did the asset remember him, remember the train, remember falling? The asset had never remembered anything before.

Or perhaps it had; perhaps they had made it forget.

The asset did not like the idea that it might have been made to forget vital intelligence.

"Mission report, now."

The asset continued to ignore its handler, its mind spinning frantically, until a sharp, painful physical impact against its face brought it out of the whirlwind of thoughts. It looked up at the Handler who had struck it. "That man on the bridge, who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," the Handler said. The Handler was lying.

The asset had long ago been taught how to distinguish the truth from a lie by looking at the tiny things that people did with their faces. The squint of an eye here, the shift of a wrinkle there, all these things could indicate that the asset was being given false information.

The Handler was lying to the asset. The asset gave the Handler a chance to correct this obvious error. "I knew him," it said.

The Handler seated himself on a stool, spoke words to the asset that the asset did not care about. They were words of rhetoric, about order and chaos, and the asset was unmoved by rhetoric. The Handler should have known this. The asset could not be affected by appeals to emotion; the asset had no emotions.

It waited for the Handler to finish speaking, and it returned the conversation to the original point. "But I knew him," it said.

The Handler stood and turned away from the asset. "Prep him."

"He's been out of cryofreeze too long," one of the Scientists said.

"Then wipe him and start over."

The asset frowned. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. Its thoughts swirled again, whipping themselves up into a screaming maelstrom that drowned out all other sounds from the building - and then the asset blinked in surprise, looking up and toward the door. That noise wasn't the asset's thoughts; screaming was actually coming from outside the room.

The Handler pointed at some of the armed men in the room. "Go see what's going on," he said.

The Scientists started to prep the asset for wiping, but the Handler waved a hand. "Not yet," he said. "Wait until I leave. I don't want to have to listen to him."

The asset's lips tightened briefly. More screams came from outside, accompanied by brief flares of gunfire.

The Handler turned to look at the asset. "It sounds like you're needed out there."

The asset stood, and one of the Scientists handed it a gun. It strode toward the door. Before it got there, the door and half the wall vanished in a sudden explosion of fire that threw the asset backward off its feet. It was undamaged, but it lost its weapon; it staggered to its feet and stared as the dust settled.

The armed men who had remained in the room were all gone; the only thing left of them was a set of black smears on the floor tiles. A winged woman stood in the epicenter of the explosion, dressed in outlandish clothes and surrounded by an aura of fire. On her left stood another woman, this one with red hair, and a man with brown skin, both of whom the asset recognized from earlier. Both of them wore body armor and carried weaponry. On the right of the winged woman stood the man with the shield; he, too, wore armor, but this time it was a blue suit with red and white stripes over the abdomen and a star on the chest.

The asset stared. It knew that man. It knew that suit. It remembered... but yet at the same time, it didn't. Somehow, the knowledge had been taken from it. It wanted that knowledge back.

The woman with the aura spoke, and her voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. _Hello, Bucky,_ she said. _It's been a very long time. I'm sorry about that. I've been looking for you, but they had you hidden from me._

The asset did not speak; it merely watched the woman. In its periphery, it saw the Scientists and the Handler struggling to their feet; it maintained its position and did not offer assistance.

_Don't worry about not recognizing me,_ the woman said.  _You've never actually seen me before. But I've been watching you, Chosen, for a very long time. I made you mine in 1943._ She smiled and held out a hand to the asset.  _Come here, love._

The asset's eyes flicked from the woman to the Scientists, then to the Handler, then back to the woman. She shook her head, still smiling. _Don't worry,_ she said. _They can't hurt you any more. Nobody is ever going to hurt you like that again; that is my promise to you. Come to me, now. Let me make you whole again._

"You can't," the Handler spat. "He's been wiped clean fifty times or more. There's nothing of the original personality left."

The woman's soft, chuckling laugh echoed through the room. _O ye of little faith,_ she said.

The asset made a decision, and it stepped forward, past the Scientists and the Handler, and it put its hand in hers.

And suddenly he was filled with light.

In the background, dimly, he could hear screaming, but the sound was shunted away from his consciousness almost immediately and did not trouble him at all. Instead he focused on the exquisite pleasure of the light that filled up his dark places, illuminating him and showing him who he was.

He remembered - he remembered everything. Brooklyn. Steve. The Army. The HYDRA base. The Howling Commandos. Falling - though that memory and all the ones that followed were immediately softened, growing hazy like something seen from far away or on a film screen. He knew, intellectually, that the asset had existed and had done terrible things, but _he_ was not the asset; the asset was gone now, at rest and at peace, and _he_ was James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky to his friends.

She released his hand, and he took a deep breath before opening his eyes. They tracked immediately to his left. "Stevie."

Steve lurched forward and embraced him tightly. "Buck."

Once they let go of each other, Bucky turned, looking in a little bit of confusion at the two scientists and the man in the suit who lay on the floor, alive, but twitching and drooling. "What the hell happened to them?"

_I returned upon them the same measure that they had administered,_ the woman in the crazy robes with the crazy wings replied.  _It's a shame what that amount of pain will do to a human mind._

"Looks like," Bucky replied, in a tone that indicated he didn't actually think it was all that much of a shame at all.

"Let's get out of here," Steve said.

"Yeah, just a second," Bucky replied. He walked back across the room, staring at the chair apparatus. "You know, lady, I don't know what you did to my head, but... it's weird. I remember this thing, you know? What it does, how it works. What they did to me in it. But it don't bother me near like it probably oughta."

_No,_ she said.  _It won't._

"Still," he continued, "I feel like I shouldn't oughta just leave it sittin' here, you know?"

_Do what you must,_ she said.

He flexed his metal hand, and he went to work. 

~*~

Once Bucky was finished reducing the machine to its component parts - nothing larger than the size of his palm remained, and the hard drives of the computer were reduced to dust - he came slightly warily across the floor to where the others lounged against the walls, waiting for him. "You done, Buck?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging diffidently.

"Okay." Steve gestured to his human friends. "This is Natasha and Sam; Nat works with me at SHIELD and is one of my Avengers teammates; Sam's former Air Force. He used to do pararescue."

Bucky offered his hand to shake; he remembered, dimly, the fight in the street, and he was not sure how they would react. To Sam's credit, he shook Bucky's hand immediately, and gave him a wide, bright smile. "Good to meet you, man," he said. "Any friend of Steve's, and all that."

"You bet," Bucky replied. Then he turned to Natasha - and he paused, his brow furrowing as he dredged into that dim milieu in the back of his mind. "I know you," he said softly. "Natasha - Natalia? Was - are you Russian?"

"I was," she admitted. "He and I knew each other very briefly a long time ago. You are not him, and I don't expect you to be. Honestly, I'm not really her any more, either." She offered her hand to him. "Natasha."

He nodded, shaking her hand. "Bucky." Then he turned back to Steve, casting a quick but significant glance at the woman in the crazy robes with the crazy wings.

Steve grinned. "This is Eris," he said. "She's... a little harder to explain."

"She's got wings," Bucky pointed out. Then he flushed. "No offense, ma'am," he said to her. "Just, I never seen nobody with wings before."

Eris chuckled.  _Nor will you again, for a long time,_ she said. She took a few steps toward him, reaching up to touch his face with one delicate hand.  _I have chosen you,_ she said.  _You do not understand, yet, what this means, but you will grow to understand in time. For now, be at peace. Know that you are loved and you are protected, and that you will have your heart's desire and more - all that you could ever ask for. In return, I ask only that you trust me and love me._

"Well, ma'am," Bucky said, "seeing as how you fixed whatever they did to me, I'm pretty inclined to trust you and at the very least like you a whole lot."

She laughed this time, full-throated, with a broad smile on her face.  _That will do for now, Chosen,_ she assured him.  _Now, let us leave this place. It is a place of torture and death, and I do not care for the smell._ She turned to Sam.  _Would you return to your home, or come with us?_

"Lady, all the cool shit goes down where you are," he said. "I'll follow you, if it's all the same."

Eris smiled.  _Join hands, all of you,_ she said.  _Form a circle._

"Is this magic?" Bucky asked, taking one of Sam's hands in his right and one of Eris's in his left.

_No,_ she confessed.  _It's just easier to hang onto everyone._

And then the wreckage of the vault room vanished around them, replaced a moment later by the living room of what appeared to be one hell of a fancy apartment. Bucky, releasing both the hands he was holding, looked around and gave a low whistle. "Who lives here?"

Steve cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "I do."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Come up in the world, ain't you, Stevie?"

Eris wordlessly stepped into the bedroom; Bucky took a moment to look around again carefully, really taking everything in. Steve shifted uncomfortably behind him. "It's not... I mean... I only live here because of Stark," he explained.

"Howard? That son of a bitch still around?"

Natasha choked with soft laughter, and Steve shook his head. "No. His son, Tony. This is his building; he's one of the Avengers. He... after we teamed up, about a year or so ago, he built everybody apartments in the building, so we'd be close in case we needed to assemble." Off Bucky's blank look, he explained further. "We're a team. A small group of people with... extraordinary abilities. Tony's got a suit that flies and shoots lasers and things. Nat's an amazing fighter. Clint's a top marksman; he never misses."

Bucky nodded. "Makes sense," he said. "So you all live here?" He glanced at Natasha for confirmation.

"I don't," Sam interjected, helping himself to a can of soda from the refrigerator in the kitchen. "But then, I'm not an Avenger."

"Why not?" Bucky asked.

Sam shrugged. "Ain't been invited."

"Yeah, give that a day or two," Steve advised.

The bedroom door opened, and a young woman with dark brown hair stepped out. She was wearing a chunky, knitted sweater, a pair of jeans, and tennis shoes. She was carrying a yellow tee shirt, which she tossed to Bucky. He blinked, even as he caught the garment and pulled it on. She looked almost like Eris, but... not. He felt himself begin to sweat with confusion.

Steve turned, and his eyes lit up. "Darcy?" he asked.

She smiled, nodding, and launched herself into his arms. "I was so worried about you," she said softly as he embraced her. "You can't go trying to fight off HYDRA by yourself, okay?"

"Hey," Natasha protested. "He wasn't by himself."

"You need  _the whole team_ ," Darcy chastised, raising her eyes to Nat's. "Seriously, you guys, don't do that any more. Okay? It makes me  _very nervous_ ."

Steve set her down on the floor and turned her, his hands on her shoulders. "Darcy," he said, "this is Bucky."

Darcy gave Bucky a broad, beautiful smile, and reached out to take both his hands. "Bucky," she said softly. "I'm so glad to meet you."

Bucky blinked at her. "I'm confused," he confessed.

"Me, too," Sam chimed in, "but that's not a surprise."

"All right," Darcy said, taking a deep breath. "Everybody sit down, and I'll... try to explain."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, a whole bunch of you twisted my arm for this and I admit it, I'm a whore for feedback. Here you go.
> 
> Also, slight trigger warning I guess for some uses of formerly common, now slightly-to-very offensive words for gay people (in context of a discussion about How Things Have Changed).

"I don't know much about the stuff that happened before I was born," Darcy began. She was standing in front of them, wringing her hands nervously. "She doesn't tell me much. Because the whole point of... of  _me_ ... is for her to really experience what human life is like. Well, and to find you guys, too. But she could've probably done that without me. So."

"So you're not the same as her?" Natasha asked.

Darcy sighed. "I am, and I'm not. She's there, you know? She's sort of... she's always there, inside my head, kind of... watching? But the part of... of  _us_ that's..." She waved her hand to vaguely indicate wings and possibly something much larger. "That's separate."

"So were you -  _you_ you, I mean - were you there, in D.C.?" Bucky asked, leaning forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees and his hands folded under his chin. He wore an avid expression of fascination that reminded Darcy of Jane when she was making a breakthrough.

Darcy nodded. "I was, but that time it was me in the back seat. She was running the show."

"It sounds like dissociative identity disorder," Sam commented.

Darcy waggled a hand. "A little bit? Sort of? Only without it being an actual disorder, because she -  _we_ , I guess - did it this way on purpose."

"Do you talk to her?" Steve wanted to know.

"Yeah," Darcy said. "Sometimes just in my head, but that takes more concentration and effort than just using a mirror."

"A mirror?" Bucky asked.

Darcy nodded. "It's a thing." She saw his mouth open and cut him off with, " _No_ , I will not show you. A girl has to have  _some_ secrets."

"Yeah, but that's some secret!" Bucky protested, grinning widely.

"Anyway," Darcy said firmly, moving the conversation along, "that's... that's the best I can do to explain it."

"Do you have other abilities?" Natasha asked. "When you're not powered up, I mean."

"Oh," Darcy said. "Um. Yes?" She cringed a little bit, as though expecting someone to yell at her.

Steve rubbed at his forehead. "Is that really relevant?" he asked Natasha.

"It might be," she replied. "I mean, we can always use more people on the team, right?"

"Absolutely not," Steve said firmly, even as Darcy gasped, "Really?"

The two of them turned and stared at each other for a moment, and Darcy's face went red. "What do you mean, absolutely not?" she asked, sounding deeply confused.

"I mean there's not a chance in hell I'm going to let you get out there and risk yourself like that!" Steve exclaimed. 

"First of all, it's not your call to make," Darcy snapped. "You think just because I'm sleeping with you, you get to give orders to me about what I do with my life?"

"No, of course not," Steve managed, backpedaling furiously.

"What, then? You think I'm not good enough? Never mind everything that just happened in D.C."

"But you said yourself, that wasn't you," Steve said. "That was her."

"So, what, because I don't have armor and wings, that makes me less capable?"

"No!" Steve exclaimed. "That's not what I meant!"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Then maybe you'd better start explaining exactly what you meant," she said. "Because from where I'm standing, it sounded a lot like I was good enough to save your ass  _and_ Bucky's in D.C. but now that we're back in New York you like me in the kitchen where I belong."

Steve took a deep breath, forcing himself to stop reacting and think through exactly what he meant to say. And as he tried to piece together the argument he wanted to make, he came to an abrupt and stunning realization. "Oh," he said softly.

Her brows drew together. "Oh, what?"

"I... I didn't think of it that way." He swallowed hard. "You're right."

She blinked. "What?"

"You're right," he said. He stood then and went to her, reaching out for her hands. She reluctantly gave them, and he squeezed them gently, looking down into her eyes. "It was an instinctive reaction, because I don't want to see you get hurt. Not ever. But it wasn't fair to you, because I  _do_ know what you're capable of, and you  _did_ just save all of our asses in D.C., and ultimately it isn't my call anyway, because it's your life." He tugged gently on her hands, pulling her closer to him and guiding her arms around his waist. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

She stared up into his eyes for a long moment, as though gauging the sincerity of his apology, and then she relented, sliding her arms around him and closing her eyes as she rested her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and bent his head to hers, murmuring soft words in her ear that the others couldn't hear.

Things were just about to become uncomfortable when Darcy unwound herself from Steve's arms and stepped back into the other room to rearrange her face. Steve, looking deeply abashed, returned to his seat on the sofa and flopped down, slumping into the cushions. Bucky socked him on the arm. "You still ain't any good with women, are you?"

"Not really," Steve admitted. He sighed heavily, his eyes tracking toward the door Darcy had disappeared through. "I'm trying, though."

"Well, looks like you got the apology part figured out, anyway." Bucky leaned back, chuckling. "And you managed to pick one that's willing to put up with you, so that's a plus."

Steve just grumbled at him, and Bucky laughed some more. A few minutes later, Darcy returned, her face composed and the streaks of eyeliner cleaned off her cheeks. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "Any more questions?"

"Not right now," Natasha said, "though I reserve the right to come back with any more that I think of later."

Darcy grinned. "Of course."

"I got a question," Sam said, leaning forward. "I wanna know what the hell we're gonna do about SHIELD being all full of HYDRA."

"For that, I think we're going to need the whole team," Darcy said.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Let's see about arranging that."

~*~

The Avengers, with the exception of Thor who was off-world, assembled in the common room, and Steve began by introducing everyone to Sam, and asking JARVIS to display footage on the big screen television of Sam in action. "Sam doesn't have his wing pack any more, though," Steve said, offhandedly. "It's being stored unused at Fort Meade, and I'm not sure that the Air Force would let us have it."

Tony snorted, with that engineering expression on his face that Steve had expected. "You don't need it," he said.

Sam blinked. "Kinda sure I do," he replied, gesturing at the television.

"No, I mean, you don't need  _that_ one," Tony said, and Steve had to cover his mouth and cough to hide his grin. "I've got all the parts in my workshop. I can have you a better one in just a couple of days."

Sam stared at him. "Seriously?"

"I made those," Tony said, pointing at the television. "I can make you another one. It's not Air Force proprietary tech. It's StarkTech."

"That's good of you, Tony," Steve said, fighting to keep a straight face.

Tony gave him the finger. "Don't think I don't see you over there gloating because you think you manipulated me into building a fancy wing pack for your new little buddy," he replied, and Steve let the grin go full force.

Bruce leaned forward a little bit, studying him. "Please don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but Steve, I think this is honestly the most I've seen you smile since we met."

"Well, I've got a couple good reasons," Steve admitted, shrugging slightly. He reached out and put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "This is Bucky Barnes."

There was a swift intake of breath from everyone in the room who'd grown up in the States. "Seriously?" Jane asked, her eyes wide. " _The_ Bucky Barnes?"

Bucky blinked. "When did I become a  _the_ ?" he asked.

"When you gave up your life in service to your country," Darcy said softly, patting his hand. "You're a hero of the history books now."

Bucky grimaced. "I don't think I like that idea very much."

"Yeah, welcome to my world," Steve replied. "To answer your question, Jane, yes,  _the_ Bucky Barnes. My best friend."

"Okay, how did you invent time travel and have you patented it yet?" Tony wanted to know.

"That's part of the reason why we called you here," Steve said. "It's a long story, and it starts two days ago when Nick Fury was assassinated in my apartment in D.C. by an operative called the Winter Soldier."

"I've heard of him," Clint said. "He's a ghost story. Over two dozen assassinations since the fifties. There's even speculation he was responsible for the Kennedy assassination. Nobody actually believes in him."

Natasha said, "Describe the Winter Soldier, Clint."

Clint thought about it. "Fast and strong," he said. "Usually no descriptions of his features, except dark hair. But they say he's got a metal arm, and that's just - " He stopped, his eyes tracking to Bucky, who had just used his left hand to pluck an apple out of the fruit bowl on the coffee table. "Uh."

Bucky gave Clint a winning smile.

Darcy made a flicking motion with her fingers, and a puff of air knocked the apple out of Bucky's hand, sending it rolling across the table. All eyes shifted to her. "Uh," Tony said, pointing to the apple.

Darcy gave Tony a smile that matched Bucky's.

Steve sighed. "And this is my girlfriend, whose alter ego is an ancient Greek goddess of chaos. She came down to D.C. when I called and told her about Nick, and she helped me rescue Bucky. It turns out, Bucky didn't die in '45; he was rescued and then brainwashed into an assassin by HYDRA. Oh, by the way, HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD up to the highest levels and we're going to have to burn it down and salt the earth it was planted in." He paused, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling. "Did I leave anything out?"

"How do you get into this much trouble in a matter of a couple of days?" Bruce asked.

"It's a natural talent," Bucky advised him. "I used to have to watch him real close back in the day, because if I turned my back on the little son of a bitch he'd start all kinds of shit." He shook his head. "My ma always said I'd come to no good runnin' around with him. Turns out she was right."

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed in protest. "This is  _not_ my fault."

"Unlike the time you took a signpost to Gino Bastoni's face?"

"He called you a mick," Steve defended himself.

"So that made it okay for you to call him a guido and knock his teeth out?"

"Yeah."

Bucky turned to the rest of the group, his hands out like a game show host. "Stevie Rogers, ladies and gents."

" _If_ we could return to the original topic of conversation," Darcy interjected. Then she paused, a slow smile crawling across her face. "Besides, if this is anyone's fault, Bucky, it's yours."

"Mine?!" Bucky exclaimed. "How do you figure?"

"She noticed you first," Darcy said. "At the Stark Expo in '43. You were looking all sharp in your uniform, and you caught her attention and made her notice Steve."

Steve looked unbearably smug. Then he seemed to realize something, blinked, and turned to stare at Darcy. "Wait, does that mean she...?"

Darcy smirked.

Steve sat back, looking suddenly very nervous.

Bucky looked unbearably smug.

Sam sighed. "Is this what it's gonna be like around the three of you all the time? Because if it is, I for one would like to vote you all  _out_ ."

Darcy laughed. "No, Sam. I promise it'll be better soon.  _Very_ soon."

"I do  _not_ need to know that," Sam replied.

The conversation was interrupted by the opening of the elevator, which heralded the arrival of Pepper Potts. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "You might want to turn on the news."

~*~

The news reports were the same on every channel: video of the carnage on the streets of Washington, the sudden arrival of dozens of armed agents in SWAT gear threatening Captain America, and then the appearance of what many people were beginning to call an avenging angel, who stepped in and vaporized those threatening men before vanishing with Captain Rogers and two other people in a fiery aura.

Darcy tilted her head. "Huh," she said. "We never realized how impressive that looks from the outside."

"We're going to need to do a press conference," Tony said. "So the world knows Captain America isn't dead or abducted."

"Should we introduce the new team members at the same time?" Pepper asked.

"I think so," Tony said. "And we can use Barnes to tell the world about HYDRA."

"Should we do that?" Bucky asked. "I mean, last time, we were sorta... classified."

"What grows in the dark dies in the light," Darcy said. "If we expose them, it puts them on the defensive. They'll make mistakes. Plus, it puts every other agency on the lookout for them as well. I can almost guarantee you that SHIELD isn't the only group they've infiltrated."

Pepper said, "We're going to have that press conference in front of the tower tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

"Well," Darcy said, "if I'm going to have to be camera-ready that early, I'm going to need my beauty sleep." She stood up, then reached out a hand to Steve. "Coming?"

"Of course," he said, standing as well and taking her hand.

She paused for just a moment, assessing him, and then she turned, offering her other hand to Bucky. "Coming, Shaggy?"

"Funny," Bucky grumbled, hauling himself to his feet and taking her hand in his metal one. "Hey, Stevie, can you cut my hair tonight?"

"Sure, Buck," Steve said as the three of them headed down the hallway. "You go wash it, and I'll get the scissors."

There was a long silence in the common room after they'd left. Finally, Jane said, "Are... we going to talk about what we just saw?"

"No," Clint said, flatly and a little too fast. "No, we are  _not_ ."

~*~

While Bucky ducked into the shower, Darcy cornered Steve in the kitchen. "We need to talk," she said softly. "About Bucky." She dropped a comb onto the counter for him.

He pressed his lips together into a thin line. "What's there to talk about?" he asked.

"You know damn well what's there to talk about," Darcy replied. "Or do I need to get  _her_ to come and talk about the things she saw, back during the war?"

"Those days are over," Steve replied, not looking at her. "I'm with you now."

"Ye-e-e-es," Darcy drawled. "But what if you were with me  _and_ him?"

He froze in the act of fishing the scissors out of the junk drawer.

"It's not a hard question, Steve," she said, coming to his side and putting her hand on his waist. "What if you were with both of us? If we were all together?"

"But you...?"

"I like him.  _She_ likes him. You like him. He likes you, and I'm pretty sure he likes me. So I'm not seeing a problem."

He frowned, looking down at the scissors in his hands, "People will say horrible things about us," he pointed out. "They'll call us deviants. They'll call you a whore."

"So?" Darcy asked. "We know the truth, don't we?" She squeezed him gently. "I don't care what people say. I want us to be happy. All of us. And we could be happy together." She leaned into his view, giving him a smile. "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."

He laid the scissors down and reached up, cupping her face in one big hand. "Are you sure about this?" he asked her.

"Extremely," she replied. She tiptoed to kiss him. "I've been waiting for this for a very long time."

He studied her face. "You weren't just waiting for the right person," he said, suddenly realizing. "You were waiting for me."

She blushed. "Busted," she admitted. She laid her own hand on top of his. "I've known about you two since I was a little girl. It's always been you - both of you. You were the whole point of everything. She - I -  _we_ \- were tired of just watching, and especially of not being able to really help. She laid a blessing on Bucky, so that he wouldn't die on the battlefield, but that wouldn't have helped if you hadn't gotten to Austria in time. And then the train..." She shook her head. "We knew you weren't dead, and so we... we made this happen. This body, I mean. This life. Someone who could be here, now, with you, in the way that you needed."

"With us, you mean," Steve said. "Both of us."

Darcy nodded.

He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning down to rest his forehead against hers. "So, no pressure or anything."

"No," she said, reaching up with her other hand to touch his face. "No pressure. You're supposed to be  _happy_ ."

"What about you?" he asked, opening his eyes and looking into hers. "What about what makes  _you_ happy?"

"I make myself happy," she replied, smiling easily. "You're just a bonus."

He laughed then, tilting her face and kissing her warmly. "And you're sure about this? You want to do this, with both of us?"

"I'm sure," she said. 

"Okay," he replied. "We'll talk to Bucky when he gets out of the shower."

"Talk to me about what, Punk?" Bucky asked, coming around the kitchen counter wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

Steve's breath caught in his throat. Darcy gave a soft, low laugh. "I don't think we're going to need to talk very much."

Bucky tossed himself into a chair, grinning. "I'm not much on talking," he said. "I prefer action."

"Yeah, that's the impression I had," Darcy replied. She grinned, then gave Steve a little push in Bucky's direction. "Go on," she said to him.

Steve closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and then he turned, stalking over to where Bucky sat, sprawled in the kitchen chair. Bucky smirked at him. Steve reached down, grabbing Bucky by the arm and pulling him up to stand, and bent his head, capturing Bucky's lips with his. Bucky's hands came up to cup Steve's cheeks, and Darcy made a soft noise of appreciation when the towel around his hips fell to the floor.

Bucky laughed softly against Steve's lips, bringing his teeth and tongue into play, and Steve whimpered desperately, his arms wrapping around Bucky and holding him tight. They kissed desperately for a long moment until Bucky suddenly startled and drew back, staring at Steve in shock. "Steve," he breathed. "What - are you - what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Steve said, reaching up to wipe at his face. "Nothing's wrong. I swear."

"Then what are you cryin' for?" Bucky asked, his thumb wiping at the damp skin under Steve's eyes.

Steve closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "I just... never thought I'd ever have this chance again," he said softly. "When you fell... I thought you were dead. I've been mourning you for two years."

"Stevie," Bucky whispered, his face falling in sympathy. "Jesus."

"No, it's okay." He leaned in and kissed Bucky again, warm and sweet. "I'm okay. You're here now. It just... it just might take me some time to get used to it."

Bucky drew Steve's head down to his shoulder, holding him close. "I'm so sorry, Stevie," he whispered. "I didn't know." He swallowed hard. "You were the first thing they took away from me. I knew... I knew there was something, and it was important, but after the first time, I couldn't remember what it was. I just knew there was something. And then I didn't know anything at all."

Steve held Bucky close, his hands fisting against Bucky's back. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice muffled into Bucky's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, hey, hey," Bucky said, leaning back and nudging Steve's face up so that he could look into his eyes. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. This wasn't your fault." He put two fingers over Steve's mouth when Steve went to speak. "I mean it," he said. "This was not your fault. I  _chose_ to follow you, remember? Phillips would've given me a ticket home. Honorable discharge. Free and clear. But I said no. I stayed because I chose to stay. And I don't regret that choice, so you don't get to either. Okay?"

Steve nodded, his breath still trembling but his eyes clearer. "Okay."

Bucky smiled up into his eyes, then patted his cheek gently. "You gonna cut my hair or what?"

"Yeah," Steve said, but he leaned down again to press his lips to Bucky's once more. Then he straightened. "Yeah. Put your towel back on; you're scandalizin' Darcy."

"Oh, no, don't cover up on my account," Darcy replied from her seat on the counter nearby. She gave them both a gentle, watery smile that tried for lascivious and missed by a mile.

They both laughed anyway, and Bucky grabbed the towel, wrapping it around his waist and sitting back down in the chair. Steve collected the comb and scissors and went to work on Bucky's hair. As he worked, he told Darcy about learning to do this as a teenager. "Shave and a haircut cost thirty-five cents back then," he said, "but so did a gallon of milk. Bread was eight cents, and Bucky could send a letter to his sister for three cents. And minimum wage was thirty cents an hour."

"Holy shit," Darcy murmured.

Bucky hummed in agreement. "Yeah. I made forty cents an hour on the docks, but the work wasn't regular even with the union bustin' its ass to make the bosses do right by us. Stevie was the one who made the real money."

Steve blushed bright red. "You hush," he said. "How short do you want it?"

"Same way as we always used to do it, Stevie," he said. "You know."

"Nobody wears their hair like that any more," Darcy murmured.

Bucky glanced in her direction. "Take a second to wonder how many fucks I give."

Darcy raised her hands in surrender. "I'm just saying."

"Yeah, so'm I." Bucky sighed as Steve clipped steadily around his head. "Remember when we used to do this every other Thursday, Stevie?"

"So you'd be ready to go out on Friday night and dance with all the girls," Steve replied, smiling in that soft way he had when he was remembering good things. 

Darcy tilted her head as she watched. "I want to hear more about how Steve was the breadwinner in this relationship," she said. "Seeing as how it made him turn that lovely shade of pink."

Bucky laughed even as Steve blushed bright red again. "Well, you see, Doll," he said, "you may or may not know it, but our Stevie is a very talented artist."

"I did know that, actually," Darcy said. "So he was making money selling his art?"

"You could say that," Bucky replied. "You know what a Tijuana bible is?"

Darcy's jaw dropped, and she stared at Steve with bright eyes. "Why, Captain Rogers!"

Steve flushed dark red. "They paid five dollars each!" he protested in a mumble. "And they didn't have to be good quality, so I could do two or three in a day."

"I'm tellin' you, Darce, we were  _rolling_ in the dough for awhile. We even talked about movin' to one of the nice neighborhoods, but we decided not to. Our building mighta been kinda shitty, but at least we didn't have to worry about the neighbors."

Darcy's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Because it was still a crime to be a fruit back then," Steve said, his voice a little hard. "And if we moved someplace, we might have to worry about the neighbors catchin' wind. Bucky could hold his own in a fight against one or two guys, no problem, but a whole bunch of 'em with chains and crowbars woulda been a different story. And me, I didn't stand a chance at all."

"It was better in the Army," Bucky said. "I mean, we still had to be careful about everything when we were in camp, but the Commandos, they didn't care. Hell, we had a Jap and a Negro on the team, who cared about a coupla inverts? Especially since they knew we were just for each other, and not interested in any of them."

Darcy gritted her teeth. "You guys are making me twitch with that kind of talk, I hope you know."

Steve gave her a hard grin. "Yeah, well, that's how it was back then, you know?"

"I know," Darcy said. "It just honestly gives me the full-body shudders."

Bucky turned to stare at her. "The hell are you talkin' about?"

"Nobody talks like that these days," Darcy explained as Steve turned Bucky's head back, rounding out the crown of his head. "It's  _incredibly_ offensive. You don't say fruit or fag or invert or whatever. Or Jap or Negro."

"Well, what the hell do you say?" Bucky asked, looking baffled.

"Black people are just black people," Darcy explained. "Or African-Americans, if you want to be super-polite. People of Japanese descent are Asian-Americans. Anyone who's not white is a person of color, so you can always just say 'people of color' if you want to be inclusive of everyone."

"Okay," Bucky drawled. "I'll try to remember."

Darcy nodded. "And the only people who say words like  _fruit_ to mean a gay person are deliberately being awful."

"Gay?" Bucky asked, trying out the word. "That means happy."

"Well, aren't you happy when you're with Steve?" Darcy countered. Bucky grinned at that, and Darcy continued. "There's actually a  _lot_ of terms that go with alternate sexualities. Men who are only into men are gay; women who are only into women are lesbians. People who are into both men and women are bisexual. People who are into men and women and other genders are pansexual or omnisexual. People who don't want to label themselves sometimes call themselves queer, polyamorous people are in relationships with more than one person at the same time, and asexuals don't do sex at all."

By now, both Steve and Bucky were openly staring at her. She blushed. "What?"

"What the  _hell_ are you talkin' about?" Bucky said.

Darcy sighed. "Never mind. I'll explain tomorrow or something. Just... things are different now, that's all. You guys could get married if you wanted to."

"Bullshit," Bucky gasped.

"No, that part's true," Steve replied, finishing the fringey edge around Bucky's forehead. "I accidentally stumbled into a wedding in Prospect Park a couple of months ago. It was two ladies getting married in the botanical garden. I didn't know they were there and I came around the bend and nearly knocked over one of the brides. She recognized me and asked me to stay."

"How did she recognize you?" Bucky asked, astonished.

"From the Battle of New York," Steve explained. "I'll show you the footage later; my face ended up all over the news."

"So you just stayed at some random woman's wedding?"

Steve gave him the eye. "Are you telling me  _you_ would deny a bride something on her wedding day?"

Bucky grimaced. "I guess not."

"It was really adorable," Darcy interjected. "He came home with pictures of himself with these two women in wedding dresses, telling me all about it. And then one of the guests posted some of the pictures on Facebook and they went viral and the next thing you know, FOX News is all but calling him a Marxist socialist communist enemy of the state."

"That was the really fun part," Steve agreed. "I think Bill O'Reilly is still mad at me."

"Well, you  _did_ go on the Daily Show and call him a cancer on American society."

"Yes," Steve said, grinning foolishly. "Yes, I did."

Bucky shook his head. "I feel like you two are speakin' some kinda foreign language," he complained.

Darcy patted his metal shoulder. "We'll get you up to speed in no time," she promised him. "In the meantime, go shower again and get all that loose hair off while Steve and I clean up."

He nodded, standing up, but then he paused, studying her for a moment. He glanced toward Steve, who was moving the chair. Steve looked up and caught his eye, and for just a moment, Darcy watched them communicate volumes with just a look. And then Bucky stepped toward her.

She felt her breath come short as he gently pushed her knees apart and stepped between them. His metal hand cupped her right knee; his flesh hand slid up the outside of her left leg and came to rest on her waist. "Did I get the chance to thank you?" he asked her softly.

"Thank me?" she managed, swallowing hard as the warmth of his skin and the smell of Steve's Old Spice body wash threatened to overwhelm her senses. "For what?"

"For rescuing me," he said softly. "For findin' me and fixin' me and gettin' me outta my head and outta that hell, and bringin' me back home where I belong."

"Oh," Darcy said.

He quirked a smile. "Yeah," he said. "I feel like just sayin' thank you ain't enough."

"Well, if it helps at all," Darcy said, swallowing hard, "I was operating from entirely selfish motives."

Bucky laughed softly. "Yeah," he said again. "I just bet you were." And then he leaned in and kissed her, soft and warm at first before progressing to hard and deep as his hand slid up her back and buried itself in her hair. Darcy gasped softly when he caught her lower lip between his teeth, and whimpered when his tongue flicked into her mouth. Her own hands made their way from his waist to his shoulders, being mindful of her nails against the scarred flesh even as she gripped him firmly. When he released her, she panted at him, and he smirked. "You wanna come join me in that shower, Doll?" he asked. "I could use some help washin' my back."

"I... um..." Darcy managed.

Steve laughed softly. "Go ahead, Darcy," he said. "I'll clean up here and come join you both."

"Oh," Darcy said. "That sounds fantastic."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this and then I decided to hell with it.

The shower was a Stark-designed monstrosity that doubled as a private sauna; there were rainshower heads at either end of the enclosed space and a wooden bench against the back wall for sweating it out. Bucky started the water at both ends while Darcy slipped out of her clothing, and they stepped in under the water together. Bucky focused first on rinsing all the loose hair out of his head and off his skin; once that was done, he turned to see Darcy rinsing shampoo out of her own hair. The slight arch of her back displayed her breasts beautifully, and he couldn't help the soft sound of appreciation that leaked out of him at the sight.

She opened her eyes, blinking water off her lashes, and grinned at him. "See something you like, soldier?"

"You know damn well I do," he replied, taking a step toward her. "I thought you made a hell of a picture in a sweater and blue jeans, but seein' you naked makes me want to get down on my knees and worship you."

She reached up to cup his cheek in her hand. "A goddess never refuses the worship of her devoted followers," she murmured, drawing him down for a hot, sweet kiss.

When Steve stepped into the bathroom a minute later, he was greeted by the wordless sounds of pleasure Darcy made when she was nearly to climax. He stripped quickly and efficiently, stepping into the shower just in time to see her arch back on the bench and come, gripping Bucky's newly-shorn hair in both hands.

Bucky winced, pulling away from her grip. "Christ, kitten, you're gonna have to watch those claws," he complained, rubbing at the top of his head.

Steve laughed. "Darcy gets a little grabby sometimes. You have to watch out for her."

"I'll keep that in mind next time," Bucky assured him. Then he grinned, holding out one hand. "Say, as long as I'm down here..."

"Oh my God," Steve groaned. "First of all, you did  _ not _ just say that. Second of all, no."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "No?" he repeated, incredulous. "Are you actually turning down a blow?"

Steve reached a hand out to Bucky, who took it automatically. He hauled Bucky up out of the shower floor and maneuvered him backward to sit on the bench beside Darcy, who was catching her breath. Then he pushed Bucky's knees apart and went to his own between them. He grinned. "I've been dreaming of this for two years," he murmured. He wrapped his hand around the base of Bucky's cock and leaned over, taking it into his mouth.

Bucky choked on a gasp. "Jesus Christ, Stevie," he managed as Steve took him all the way in, burying his nose in Bucky's wiry public hair and swallowing around the head of Bucky's cock. Bucky's hand fell to the back of Steve's head, not guiding but simply resting, fingers threading through the short blonde hair. " _ Jesus. _ "

Steve pulled back and grinned up at him again. "Nah," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "Just me." And then he leaned down again, taking Bucky in, sucking hard while one of his hands cupped and rolled Bucky's balls. Bucky swore, his hips jerking despite his attempts to keep them still, and Darcy watched avidly as his eyes rolled up and his head fell back against the wall.

She leaned over then, resting one hand on Bucky's chest, and captured his lips in a warm, deep kiss. He groaned into her mouth, his metal hand sliding up to grip the back of her neck, and she placed a hand on his right cheek, holding him close while her tongue danced with his. Beneath the dual onslaught, Bucky couldn't hold on; with only the barest of warnings in the form of a tug on Steve's hair, he came, moaning into Darcy's mouth while he emptied himself into Steve's.

He shuddered as Steve licked him clean, and he groaned softly as Darcy released his mouth. She shifted on the bench, bracing one foot on the tiled floor, and leaned over to kiss Steve hard, licking at a pearly drop of Bucky's seed that was still on his lips before slipping her tongue into his mouth, whining softly at the taste of both men combined. Bucky's metal hand gripped her thigh. "Holy shit, kitten," he whispered.

She released Steve, looking back up at Bucky and grinning. "Let's get out of here," she said.

They shut the water off and stepped out of the shower together, toweling off and grinning at each other. Darcy, in a gratuitous show of power, banished the water in their hair, and then flushed slightly as her own hair frizzed around her head. "That's why I don't usually do that," she admitted, grabbing an elastic to tie her locks back. "But I hate getting the pillows wet."

"Hey, whatever makes you happy," Steve replied, grinning. He took both of them by the hand then, leading them out into the bedroom. "And right now, I know what's going to make me very happy."

Darcy giggled, darting to the bed and leaping onto it. Bucky followed, a little more slowly. "So, how exactly does this work?" he asked. "I mean, specific logistics."

"Oh, there's a lot of ways it can work," Darcy assured him. "But for right now, I was kind of thinking we should start off slow." She cocked an eyebrow at Steve, who nodded, and she held out a hand to Bucky. "Come here."

He came, crawling across the bed to her, and she drew him down to lie on his side, raising one knee to rest it on his hip and gripping the cock that was hardening between his thighs already. "You know how this works, right?" she said.

"Well, sure I do, Doll," he said, sounding a little impatient. "I've done this before, you know."

She quirked one eyebrow at him and said, "Then what are you waiting for?"

He leaned forward, capturing her lips in a kiss, and his hand slid down between her legs, testing her wetness. "I need a rubber," he said.

"No, you don't," she replied. "I'm clean - I don't have any diseases, I mean - and I can't get pregnant."

"You can't?" he asked, his brows drawing together in concern.

She shook her head. "It's a medication. It's called birth control pills. As long as I take them, there is a ninety-nine percent chance that I will not get pregnant."

"Well, damn," he said, shifting forward and pressing his cock into her. "What'll they think of next?"

She gasped at his easy breach of her body, clutching at his arm, and he chuckled, pulling her close. His hips rolled against hers, smooth thrusts finding a quick and satisfying rhythm, and they held each other tight as he fucked into her over and over, whispering soft words of encouragement and pleasure to each other.

Within just a couple of minutes, though, there were hands touching Bucky from behind, urging him to shift and roll until he was on top of her, his knees braced into the mattress about a foot apart. She raised her other leg up around his hip, locking her ankles at the small of his back, and he gave her an extra-deep thrust in reward.

Then he felt slick fingers touching him, sliding between his cheeks and finding his hole. He shuddered at the smooth touch of the substance on Steve's skin, and then shuddered even harder when Steve's finger breached that tight ring of muscle, pressing deep inside him. "Fuck, Stevie," he groaned.

Steve laughed softly. "Just relax," he murmured. "We have all night."

"Not if I fuckin' explode first," Bucky complained.

"You won't explode," Darcy assured him, patting the side of his neck. "That's why Steve took the edge off."

"I might," Bucky groused, but then he gasped as Steve pressed a second finger into him, stretching him carefully. "Jesus  _ Christ _ ," he managed. "Was... was it like this last time?"

"It's been longer than you think," Darcy reminded him gently, stroking his skin. "Remembering would only have hurt you."

Bucky frowned at her, reaching into his mind. He could sense those hazy memories - Eris had not taken them completely, but had cushioned them carefully enough that remembering them would have to be a deliberate act, and even that would be grainy and separate from himself. He got the impression, though, that there had been quite a lot of time in which he had not been himself. "I knew..." he managed. "But that..."

"Shh." She raised her head off the pillow and kissed him gently. "Not tonight."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Not tonight." And then he choked as Steve pressed a third finger into him, pushing in deep, stretching him wide. "Fuck.  _ Steve. _ "

"Just a second," Steve said softly. "Let me be sure." And he twisted his wrist.

Bucky's hips jerked hard when Steve's fingers brushed across his prostate. "Christ, Steve,  _ fuck me. _ "

Steve chuckled, leaning down to press his lips to the small of Bucky's back. Then he withdrew his hand. Bucky whined, but arched when Steve pressed the slick head of his cock against Bucky's hole. "Ready?" he asked." 

"So fucking ready," Bucky groaned. And then he went completely still as Steve pressed into him.

Steve's eyes fluttered closed, an expression of absolute bliss overtaking him as he sank into Bucky's body to the root. "Oh, Jesus, Buck," he whispered. "So good. You feel so good. Like home."

"Yeah," Bucky whispered back. "Come home, Stevie. Come home to me."

There was a long moment of absolute stillness between the three of them, and then Steve drew back and pushed forward, thrusting into Bucky and pushing Bucky deeper into Darcy. Three moans filled the air around them, and then they started to move, finding their rhythm and seeking tandem, touching and stroking and kissing and whispering words of love. Darcy's eyes met Steve's and she was not surprised to see tears sliding down his face. He, on the other hand, was a little surprised at the depth of the unhesitating love and acceptance that shone from hers. He reached down with his clean hand and touched her face; she captured his fingers with hers and pressed gentle kisses to the pads before sucking two of them into her mouth, swirling her tongue around them.

Steve hissed. "Darcy, baby," he whispered. "God, I love you."

"Love you, too," she murmured back, the words a little mushy around his fingers but still understandable. She raised her other hand to Bucky's face. "And you."

"Darce," Bucky managed, his voice coming out broken and desperate. "Darcy..." And then, with a spectacular shove from Steve, Bucky came, crying out and fucking hard into Darcy, filling her with warmth. Darcy arched underneath him, squeezing him hard with her inner muscles, loving the sensation as he pulsed inside of her. The contractions of his muscles brought Steve to climax as well, and he bowed over Bucky's back with a hoarse shout of Bucky's name.

After a couple of moments of soft breathing, Steve carefully pulled out of Bucky, who whimpered softly at the loss before himself sliding out of Darcy. She gasped at the withdrawal, and Steve's eyes cut to her sharply. "Did you?"

She shuddered as Bucky replaced his cock with two of his fingers. "No," he answered for her. "She didn't."

"Well, we can't have that," Steve said. He shifted on the bed, grinning, and nodded at Bucky's hand. "That's a good plan," he said. "Let me help." And as Bucky began to fuck her with two fingers, Steve leaned down and parted her flesh with his tongue.

"Oh, fuck," Darcy moaned, and then she writhed in pleasure as he took her clit in his mouth, sucking on it just the way she liked. "Oh, fuck, Steve, Bucky, fuck!" Her hands came flying up to grip at the pillow above her head, and she struggled underneath them, her body working with them as she rolled toward her orgasm.

When it came, she arched, shuddering hard and crying out wordlessly, her body jerking with each wave before falling, boneless, to the mattress. Steve gave her a few more gentle licks to help her come down, and then Bucky slowly withdrew his hand. Both of them shifted to lie alongside her, and they clasped their hands together over her stomach. She shuddered a little bit at each touch to her skin, each soft kiss or caress from one of her boys, before finally relaxing completely with a soft sigh.

"And that," she said softly, "is how that works."

Bucky chuckled. "Well I gotta say," he murmured against her temple, "I think this is gonna work out just fine for all of us."

"I think you're right," Steve replied. "And I, for one, am looking forward to it."

~*~

The scene in front of Avengers Tower the next morning was just shy of pandemonium. News anchors from every major U.S. network, as well as several international news agencies and print reporters from all over the world, had gathered to hear what the Avengers had to say. Stark Industries's PR department had been very effective in generating interest.

The team, in uniform (except for Bruce, who simply wore a nice shirt and a blazer), gathered in an anteroom just off the Tower's lobby, double checking their statements with each other and helping to keep one another calm. Bucky didn't really have a uniform yet; Tony had outfitted him in form-fitting black kevlar for now, and had promised to make him a whole suit out of the same vibranium-enhanced material that Steve's suit was made of. Sam, who was wearing a new prototype wing pack that Tony claimed to have cobbled together in his workshop the night before - and that was probably true - reached out and put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "You doing okay?"

Bucky nodded, then shook his head, his eyes glued to the note cards in his hands. "I've never had to talk to the news before," he admitted. "I mean, they always had movie cameras out there, for the newsreels, you know? But Steve was always the one they wanted to talk to."

"You'll be all right," Sam said. "Just tell the truth about what you experienced and remember two things. First, these people will be predisposed to be in complete awe of you because they've all grown up knowing your name as a hero. Second, these people will be predisposed to love you already because they love Cap, and they know you're Cap's man. Know what I'm sayin'?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah. Still, it just... it makes me nervous." As if to prove the point, a sudden explosion of thunder made him jump and look around, wild-eyed.

The rest of the team paused, looking vaguely up toward the ceiling, and then JARVIS's voice came out of the speaker. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "Thor has returned."

"Oh, excellent," Tony said. "Now we won't have to field stupid questions about why he's not here."

Sure enough, about five minutes later, he was led into the small anteroom by Darcy, who came to Bucky's side and wrapped her arm around his waist. "Thor," she said, "this is Bucky. Bucky, this is Thor."

Bucky offered his hand to the giant man with the red cape. Thor reached out and clasped his arm just under the elbow, grinning broadly. "It is an honor to meet the Captain's shield brother!" he boomed. "I have heard many tales of your skill and valor in battle."

"Uh. Thanks?" Bucky asked, clearly confused.

Thor just laughed, releasing his arm and clapping him on the metal shoulder hard enough to nearly stagger him. "We shall have time and more than time to grow acquainted," he said. "For now, know that as you are the Captain's friend, so too are you mine. The Lady Darcy has told me a bit of your troubles; rest assured that none of evil HYDRA shall harm you again so long as I draw breath."

"Well, thanks, pal," Bucky said, blinking in surprise. Thor grinned again and turned away to greet the rest of the team and meet Sam. Bucky looked down at Darcy. "That was friendly."

Darcy grinned. "Thor's great," she said. "Really. I'll tell you all about how Jane and I ran him over with a Pinzgauer later." She reached up and cupped his cheek. "You okay? You're looking a little peaky."

"I feel a little peaky," he admitted. "I'm not sure I can do this without throwin' up."

"Do you want to go ahead and throw up first? Get it out of the way?"

Bucky laughed softly. "Not really," he admitted. "I don't really wanna throw up at all."

She turned to face him directly, guiding his hands to rest on her hips. Then she placed her own hands on his neck, her fingertips just brushing the short hair at the back. "Look at me," she whispered. He met her eyes, and she smiled at him. Her hands slowly grew warm, and that warmth sank into his skin, running through his muscles and nerves and bones until his whole body was filled up with it. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers, and both of them closed their eyes, just breathing together for a moment.

Natasha cleared her throat. "You might want to dial that back, just a bit," she said. "He's glowing."

They both opened their eyes again and Darcy laughed at the sight of Bucky, who was actually emanating a soft yellow light - not enough to read by, but definitely enough to count as a night light. "Oops," she said. She rested two fingertips on his forehead and blew softly into his face, and the glow dissipated, leaving him looking quite normal but still feeling warm inside. She grinned at him. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," he murmured, brushing a kiss against her forehead. "I'm good. Thanks, Doll."

A young man with an earpiece stuck his head into the room. "Avengers, they're ready for you."

Darcy released Bucky with a quick kiss to the cheek, then darted over and laid one on Steve as well. "You're gonna be great, guys," she said, giving them all a thumbs up.

"What do you mean, 'you,' Lewis?" Tony asked. "Power up; you're coming out there with us."

"Oh, no," Darcy began, but Natasha overrode her. "Oh, yes," she said. "I've been the only estrogen in this testosterone factory for long enough. Power up."

Darcy rolled her eyes. " _ Fine _ ," she groused. "But I don't have my apple, so the best I can do is a seeming."

"Whatever works," Clint said, nudging her with his elbow. "Just make it look good."

"You want me going out there like that, or should I do it for the cameras?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, do it for the cameras," Steve said. "I want to see FOX News lose their minds over yet another ancient deity on the team. By next week we'll all be Satanists."

Darcy laughed and took her place among her new teammates.

~*~

"Ladies and gentlemen of the presses," Tony said into the microphone. "You know who I am. You know most of the people standing here with me. We are the Avengers, and we are here to make a few announcements. The first thing I want to do is introduce some new team members, people you may or may not recognize, but whose faces you should get used to seeing." He paused. "And we  _ are not _ answering questions right at the moment; save them till the end."

Tony placed a gauntleted hand on Sam's shoulder. "This gentleman standing here is Sam Wilson, aka Falcon. Sam is a former member of the Air Force pararescue squad, and is joining the team as air support. The young lady standing in front of Cap here is Darcy Lewis, also known as Eris. That's spelled E-R-I-S, so please get it right. Darcy, show 'em what you can do."

Darcy rolled her eyes and, with a loud  _ boom _ , projected an illusion of herself-as-Eris over the actual form of herself-as-Darcy. The crowd  _ ooh _ ed and  _ ahh _ ed appropriately, and Clint pretended to get feathers up his nose.

Then Tony said, "The last new member of the team is going to address you directly and introduce himself." At that, he stepped aside, revealing Bucky, who had been standing directly behind him.

Bucky, still buzzing a little bit from Darcy's warmth, stepped up to the microphone. He placed his note cards on the podium, and looked out at the gathered crowd. He took a deep breath. "My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," he said. "Some of you might know me as Bucky."

The crowd of reporters let out a babbling squawk. Camera flashes went crazy and several people shouted questions at him. Tony leaned forward toward the microphone. "Questions at the end!" he snapped.

The reporters quieted, and Bucky looked down at his note cards, took another deep breath, and began again. "I'm told that a lot of you will already know my story, but a lot of you might not, so here's the short version. In 1943 I was drafted into the Army to go and fight Hitler in Europe. I was assigned to the 107th Infantry Regiment. In October of '43, my unit was captured by HYDRA in Italy. They marched us up to a weapons factory in Austria and they put us to work.

"In November of '43 we got rescued by Captain America. He asked some of us - me, Tim Dugan, Jim Morita, Gabe Jones, Jacques Dernier, and Monty Falsworth - to come with him, and we formed a special troop. The Army codenamed us Strike Team Supernova, but your grandparents called us the Howling Commandos."

There was a soft chuckle from the assembled reporters. Bucky swallowed hard. "In 1945, we - by which I mean the Commandos - captured a train that was transporting a HYDRA scientist called Arnim Zola through the Austrian Alps. In the course of capturing that train, I fell off and was lost in the mountains and presumed dead. What nobody knew was that I didn't die in the fall, though I did lose my left arm. I was retrieved by what I believe to have been Russian solders, who passed me through a chain of custody that I cannot reliably repeat, until I ended up back in the hands of HYDRA."

The gaggle of reporters was totally silent now. Bucky cleared his throat, paused to take a sip out of the cup of water someone had brought him, and continued speaking, reading from his cards. "As a prisoner of HYDRA I was subjected to torture and medical experimentation. One relic of that experimentation is this arm, which is totally bionic from the shoulder joint to the fingers. Another is that I was dosed with what we believe to be a variant of the Super Soldier Serum - yes, the same serum that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. I was also subjected to extreme brainwashing techniques, including the use of electroshock therapy that caused serious retrograde amnesia."

He put his cards aside. "I've read you the fancy statement they wanted me to say. Now let me tell you what HYDRA did to me. They dragged me into a lab and pumped me full of drugs. They cut my shoulder apart, took out a bunch of my bones, and replaced 'em with steel-vibranium alloy. Then they put this arm on me. They put me in a chair and clamped electrodes on my head and they ran lightning through my brain until I didn't know who I was any more. And then they told me I was nothing, I wasn't even a person. I was a tool that they had created for their use. And they gave me missions - go here, go there, and kill. Always kill. Twenty-seven people died because HYDRA burned out my brain and then told me to kill them. And when I wasn't killing for them, they stuck me in a freezer and left me there for years at a time. Hell, one time in the mid-seventies they lost track of where I was, and I was stuck off in a basement in Volgograd for twenty-two years because nobody could remember where they put me."

Bucky looked directly into every camera that he could find. "Now let me tell you how I was rescued. Two days ago in Washington D.C., HYDRA agent Alexander Pierce had me activated and gave me orders to track and eliminate Nicholas J. Fury, director of SHIELD, and Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, and anybody working with them. My training and skill set involve operating in stealth, as a sniper and an assassin, but the Handler's orders were to proceed in the open and cause as much furor as possible. You've all already seen the results of this order. What you don't know is that during the confrontation between myself and Captain America, he recognized me and he called me by name, and he triggered the process of breaking down the programming that HYDRA stuck in my head. Yesterday, with the help of the Black Widow, Falcon, and Eris, Captain America rescued me from HYDRA again. Eris used her abilities to restore my mind, and for the first time since 1945, I was Bucky Barnes again."

He took another sip of water. "Some of you might be wondering about a name I gave you. Alexander Pierce. Is it the same one you're thinking of? Alexander Pierce, who's America's representative to the World Security Council? And I'm standing here telling you the answer to that question is  _ yes _ . Steve Rogers gave his life to stop HYDRA in 1945, but he didn't die, and neither did HYDRA. Through a government program called - what was it, Tony?"

Tony leaned forward. "Operation Paperclip. Look it up. My father and Peggy Carter were adamantly opposed to it, but they were overruled." He stepped back again.

Bucky nodded. "Through Operation Paperclip, a whole bunch of Nazi scientists got get-outta-jail-free passes on the stuff they did during the war, and they got brought over here to the U.S. to work for us. Wernher von Braun, the rocket scientist, was one of 'em. Another one was Arnim Zola. And Arnim Zola brought HYDRA right here to the U.S., and he spread it to everybody he could, and I am standing here right now, a living and breathing testament to what I'm about to tell you all."

He straightened himself up, placing both hands flat on the podium. "HYDRA is here. HYDRA has infiltrated the U.S., and probably a whole bunch of other places, too. What grows in the dark dies in the light, and I want to say right now to anybody who's hearin' me speak. My name is James Buchanan Barnes, and I'm about to shine a fuckin' spotlight on every patch of ground HYDRA thinks it's got roots in. If you're HYDRA, know this: I ain't gonna forget what you did to me, and I'm comin' for you."

He stepped back from the podium then, taking up a place beside Steve, who reached up and placed his hand very firmly and visibly on Bucky's shoulder. Tony stepped back in front of the microphones and waited for one long beat in the silence that followed. Then he said, "Any questions?"

~*~

Much later, Bucky lay curled up on the couch in Steve's apartment, his head resting on Darcy's thigh. Her fingers stroked gently through his hair, her nails scratching lightly against his scalp, and he dozed, floating gently in the pleasurable sensation. In the kitchen, Steve was making pasta; Bucky could smell garlic and tomatoes and hot bread. He gave a soft hum of pleasure, and Darcy laughed softly. "Feel good?" she asked.

"Mmm-hm," he agreed, never opening his eyes. "Feels good. Smells good. Almost like a dream."

"Mmm," she hummed. "It's not a dream, though," she whispered. "Not any more. You're home, and you're safe, and nobody is ever going to be able to hurt you again."

He reached up and squeezed her knee gently, rubbing his thumb across the soft skin under the hem of her shorts. "Hey, Darce?" he asked. "How come you picked us? I mean... Steve, I get, because... Steve. But why me? I'm nothin' special. Never have been."

"But you are," she murmured. "The first time I saw you at the Stark Expo, I noticed you among that whole throng of people, you specifically. Do you know what you were doing? You were looking for Steve. He'd wandered away from you, and when you turned to look, he was gone. And you cared about him so much that you immediately worried. Where had he gone? Was he going to get himself into trouble? You had to find him. And that's why I noticed you. Because you cared for him so much, you loved him so much, and your soul shone so brightly that it overpowered everything else around. Until you found him, and his brightness gave you a run for your money."

She stroked the soft skin of his temple with her thumb. "That's why," she said. "Because I saw your soul,  ἀγαπητός,  and it was so beautiful that it nearly broke my heart."

He turned his head and blinked up at her. "What's that mean?" he asked softly.

She smiled. "It means 'beloved,'" she murmured. And then she leaned down and kissed him.

From the kitchen, Steve called out, "Dinner's ready!"

Darcy smiled against Bucky's lips. "Coming, dear," she replied.

Bucky rolled off the couch and onto his feet, reaching for Darcy's hands. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and together they headed into the kitchen to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end, guys! Two days sooner than you should have gotten it, you demanding creatures. ;)
> 
> As always, my thanks go out to Secondalto and Citymusings, who are my daring and ~~demented~~ determined first readers, and to all of you who read and who left comments and kudos to feed my always-fragile ego.
> 
> Also, FYI to anyone who's following my Bucky/Jemma story, "The Deepest Secret Nobody Knows" - this story here is the reason why "Secret" hasn't had any work done to it in several days. I'm going to be getting back to that story now, so hopefully I should have an update on it fairly soon. Thanks for being patient!


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